I started off to work, but limped back home with the MR2 yesterday -- I'm not quite sure what exactly the problem is, but my guess is ECU related. The brake warning, battery charge, and cooling fan lights all came on at once, which seemed odd. Gauges seemed normal for the engine and the coolant wasn't boiling, so it was a reasonable assumption that everything was OK.

The brake light indicates a leak which is sealed, but at that point, the brakes are working only on the remaining pressure in the hydraulics. I engine brake a lot anyway, so it wasn't too big a deal. I haven't investigated whether this actually is a brake problem and I didn't notice the brake pedal requiring more force than usual. Those generally lead me to think that the diagnostic unit is getting bad information.

To add insult to injury, I pulled argus down briefly. Drive 3 (a 250 GB) of the media LVM started making clicking noises. It's probably the result of thermal damage. I'm looking for a place that'll do a sector-by-sector recovery which weirds out all the sales droids I've spoken to. They don't seem to get that this was in an LVM and those bits are likely fragments of files that I'd like to put back on a good drive that I can plug back in.

Lastly, my hopes of a California Western Conference final in hockey were dashed last night -- San Jose lost to Detroit.

Each of these has a good thing:1. Finally got around to changing the oil on the van. It's nice to be reminded how little of a pain it normally is.2. koneko666 happened to have a free 300GB drive which I attempted to cat data too. He graciously hand delivered it last night. No luck, but it's nice to have a drive ready for when/if I get the data back.3. Rooting for a team in the western conference finals is now easy -- Go Anaheim!

While I joke with a lot of people that relsqui is about fourth in my priorities (behind my computers, cars, and cats in no particular order), I mused on the way to work that this whole occasion served as proof to the opposite. All of this above led to frustration -- easily overcome and quickly forgotten when the crisis passes. Any particular problem relating to relsqui no doubt would have caused much greater consternation.

Incidentally, if anyone has a recommendation for some place that'll do a sector-by-sector recovery of my HDD, I'd dig it.

EDIT: Oh yeah -- allergies. I wasn't sure if I was actually allergic to the pollen and stuff. I took my shirt off at one point to crawl under the van and put it back on. When I got back in the house to change out of my work clothes, I noticed I had a neat little rash developing.

Plus side? I could take allergy meds, but not yet. I hate taking drugs for minor discomforts.

I doubt it would be of any use, but I'm willing to give almost anything a shot. I was using taskfile access to try and get anything off the disk all through last night. Not a single bit copied through the dd conv=noerror though. =/